Let It Snow!

Yesterday was a miserable freakin' day for lots of reasons. I was not in a good mood, was just feeling mad, sad, bad, egad, gonad and un-rad.

You get the point. Bad day, bad week, bad everything.

So I was steeped heartily in my own little funk when it was time for The Bambina to wake up from her nap, during which about 3 inches of snow had fallen. So, taking my cue from The Sages who say that you are supposed to do things even if you don't feel like doing them because in the doing will come the feeling, I opened the blinds and showed her the falling snow outside blanketing the grass and trees and cars. I showed her not because I was feeling the excitement about it myself, but because that's what parents are supposed to do when it is their child's first snowfall/lunar eclipse/keg stand/whatever.

She took one look outside and her face just went elastic, like, "What in the HELL is this?! It's magic! It's magic! Oh my lord! How can something this amazing be happening in front of my own little eyes!? It's like a dream come true! Mama, have you been reading my diary?!!"

She started laughing that musical, beautiful, jubilant laugh that only kids can do. It's the laugh of "part funny, part wonder, part joyous disbelief." It's the laugh that cheeseball people like Kathie Lee Gifford or Michael Landon as Paw Ingalls would have said makes you see the world in a new, childlike way.

Damn if the cheeseballs don't win this one. Her wide eyed joy and bubbly laughter stopped me dead in my tracks and forced me to see the world in a new way. A world where the smallest thing can bring you higher even when you are feeling tremendously low. A world where something as pedestrian as snow can make you feel like the world is a beautiful and magnificent and inspired place. A world where you realize that you always have the choice of how to spend your days in that world. You can succumb to the often-understandable urge to look out the window and see negativity, despair or hurt, or you can make the conscious choice to look out the window and see something old in a new way.

It might be snow. It might be your neighbors. It might be your friends.
Or it might be your own self reflecting back at you.